


Cleanse

by AltheaShepard



Series: It's alright [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Depression, Grief, Guilt, It's not ok but it will be, Moving On, Talk of Character Death, inability to cope
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2020-02-29 22:02:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18787096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AltheaShepard/pseuds/AltheaShepard
Summary: Anger breaks down the wall of numbness and leeches the acid from the blood.





	Cleanse

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warning! Talk of depression, potential character death, past character death, inability to cope, guilt, grief and moving on. It gets worse before it gets better. It'll be alright.

It was beautiful here. A sweet breeze, warm sunlight, cool earth beneath his bare feet. Days like this he liked to take for himself every so often, tucking his hands in his pockets and just walking, filling his lungs with the scent of the juniberry flowers and letting the wind comb through his hair. It was getting a bit long, maybe he’d have his mother cut it soon. Allura would probably argue with him though, pouting at not having as much to play with. Chuckling softly, he continued walking, letting his gaze sweep over the fields around him. 

 

Juniberries had become a sort of symbol for a lot of people. The original meaning of the word according to Coran had been rebirth, the flowers always blooming in a vibrant wave just as the last of a harsh Altean winter faded away. Given how Coleen had gotten them to bloom for the first time in ten thousand years, the flower had also come to mean strength and resilience. Having them bloom again on Altea, their home world, strengthened that meaning. 

 

“It makes me so happy to see them home again,” Allura said, curling her arm through one of Lance’s as she stepped up beside him.

 

He smiled down at her, chuckling at the crown of juniberries on her head.

 

“Did one of the kids make that for you?”

 

She smiled softly, offering up her other hand and the second crown she’d been hiding. Chuckling again he crouched enough for her to place it upon his head, fingers combing briefly through his hair and coming to rest on his face. Stepping closer, he curled his arms around her waist, kissing her forehead.

 

“Thank you, Lance,”

 

“Hm? For what?”

 

Her smile was fond as he pulled back to look at her though a touch of sadness curled her lips. Thumbs stroked his cheeks just below the marks under his eyes. Something curled unpleasantly in his chest, slow, cold and sickly. There was a quiet sadness in her eyes, her hands drawing him down into a slow, sweet kiss.

 

He loved her kisses. They were so soft, so pure, electrifying and calming at once. He remembered how it felt that first time under the tree. Neither of them had been certain at first, hesitant, wary of pushing the other. Excitement though had chased the nerves away and the next kiss had been easier, and the one after that easier still until it was like breathing between them. The awkward get to know you phase they could thankfully mostly skip, their time as paladins forging a bond stronger than they expected. A bond that bolstered him when things started getting dark on the hunt for Honerva, the hunt to stop her from whatever she was planning. That bond made it easier for him to know when to simply sit with her when she was sad, make a fool of himself to make her smile, push her to try and sleep or to eat something.

 

And it had worked the other way around too, Allura knowing exactly where to find him, knowing his door was always open when her mind was too busy to let her sleep. They could read each other effortlessly, feed each other strength with only a look or a brush of hands. His world had come alive the second she'd kissed him. And it had slowly died when the realization of what she was going to do washed over him.

 

In a way, distantly, logically, he knew why it had to be this way, what was at stake if she didn't, why he couldn't go with her. But the bigger part of him, the part that settled when he met her eye across a crowded room, the part that curled around her to protect her, the part that only wanted to ever see her smile, that part was crying, screaming, raging in denial. 

 

_ It isn't enough time! Let Honerva fix it herself! This was her fault to begin with! Why should Allura have to fix it! _

 

That part kept him frozen for a long time, chilled him to the bone, sucked every bit of energy from him until he was numb. He moved and breathed because others needed him. His family needed him. His found family needed him. He couldn't die yet. 

 

It became easier as the days past, the first year bleeding by in a blur of reconstruction, quiet grief and pasting a smile on his face so no one could see the numbness, so no one could question it. Blue leaving had been like another piece ripping from him, another piece floating away. Her parting rumble had been reassurance, a wish for peace and a swell of affection so big it left him speechless.

 

It wouldn't be fair to ask her to stay.

 

Just like it wouldn't have been fair to beg Allura to stay.

 

It would have killed her to stay, to not move when what could be done could be done by her alone. It killed her to leave too, just as much as it killed Lance to watch her. He felt that now, felt her own grief wash through him as her hands pressed against his chest, her forehead to his, her tears a mirror of his.

 

"I miss you. So much." 

 

It was hard to breath, near impossible to speak with the knot in his throat.

 

"And I miss you. I miss you so much, Lance. But I-"

 

"I know. I… I know…"

 

He can't hear her say it. He knows. The numbness reminds him that he knows.

 

They breath together, standing there in a field of juniberries, close as they possibly can be.

 

"Is it my time? Is that why I'm seeing all this? Why I'm seeing you?"

 

She shakes her head, shifting back enough to look at him. He manages to pry his eyes open enough to meet hers, confused by the smile on her face.

 

"I'm here to tell you that it's alright now. It's alright for you to live now." 

 

He's still. The breeze is still and for a second he thinks if he blinks she'll shatter into a thousand specks of dust and he'll be plunged into one of his nightmares, the only thing that actually makes him aware of his own heartbeat nowadays. 

 

He blinks and she's still standing there. Again and her hands have moved to cup his face, warm on his cold skin. Something sparks in his chest, something he hasn't felt in a while, the first thing he's felt, really hand to god felt, since her death.

 

When he was a kid, his temper used to be worse than Keith's. He'd fly off the handle and rage and his mother had always thought it was adorable because he was the baby and he'd rage for five minutes, sulk another ten and be back to bouncing around and annoying his siblings and have no idea why he'd gotten so mad. He'd grown out of it, his fuse lengthening the more bullshit he was put through and by the time he and Allura had started dating he couldn't dredge up more than brief spark.

 

Now though. Oh now. He was so angry his fingers were tingling, heat searing through his skin, smoke rushing into his lungs. She let him pace away from her, let him stalk a tight line in front of her. Endlessly patient with him as always. And it only made it worse. 

 

And she knew that. Standing there watching him, watching the anger sear away the guilt and sadness and longing in his eyes, watching tension finally snap his shoulders up and back, she knew that anger was the way to break through to him. She pulled from experience, remembering her own rush of it, the only thing that could break through the numbing wall of guilt that had fallen around her shortly after her waking. Working had helped, having a goal had helped. It kept her mind busy and her hands occupied but at night, when her body cried out for rest and her eyes wouldn’t focus, that’s when the numbness would take over, would drag her down to where she didn’t care what was going on around her. 

 

It was an addicting feeling at first. All you had to do was focus on your task and not feel, not think of what you lost, what you could never have again, who you’d never see smile again. Just the task at hand was important. But over time that numbness created a wall and you were too numb to try and break it down. Until something came along that fractured that wall, a spiderweb of cracks forming at the impact site. Another impact and things start leaking in and the easiest thing to grab first is anger. Anger at someone breaking down the wall, anger at someone butting into your pain, anger at someone hurting what was yours and when did they become yours? 

 

After anger burned away the wall and the numb and lit the area around it was easy to see what you had missed, what was reaching out to you, what you grab and clutch and call yours and wouldn’t argue because they wanted to be yours as much as you wanted to be theirs. All of theirs, even the tiny angry one. Even the one that was partially made of what you hate. Even the soft, frightened one and the calm collected one with the fraying edges. The achingly familiar one. And the lanky, loud, goofy, flirtatious, kind, welcoming, warm one who never hid what was in his heart. 

 

That one she wanted the most though the epiphany was slow in coming and far too late. 

 

She wanted to protect that one with all her heart. She wanted to return even a fraction of the strength he had given her in their brief romance. 

 

Most of all, she wanted to see him happy again, look in on him and see that smile she loved so much, hear that laugh bubble from deep in his belly and let it wash over her. She didn’t care who caused it, she just wanted to see it, hear it, cherish it one more time.

 

So anger is what she provoked him, what she used to beat through that wall he’d sunk behind for two years, blinding him to the one reaching out to try and bring him back. 

 

She needed to get him back to the other side though, away from her, reassure him that it was ok to love again, to live, to move on, to cherish her in his heart and still love another, that he wouldn’t be dishonoring her or her memory by doing so.

 

“Lance,”

 

“You want me to live. You want me. To live. Without you. Without people knowing just what you did for them. You want me to live with this gaping hole where my heart used to be. Where my lungs used to be. You want me to live in a world where there’s no air in it, where it’s just cold and empty and pointless and I’m just waiting to die? That’s what you want me to do?! 

 

Or do you want me to move on and forget you? Fall in love with someone else and cast you aside. Do you really think I’m that easy? That I’d do that to you?! To him?! Jump into something with him and leave him wondering how many times I see you instead of him?! Is that what you’re here for?! To tell me it’s ok to forget that I love you?! That you sacrificing yourself ripped a part of me out the second you figured out what you had to do?! 

 

Do you have any idea how many times I tried to be angry at you for that?! How many times I replayed that entire bullshit thing out in my head, looking for a way out of it?! A way that didn’t lead to losing you?! That didn’t lead to this guilt eating me up inside because I look at him when we’re together, when he isn’t too busy being the hero he is, and wonder what could be? What you would think if I kissed him? If I let my heart beat again for someone other than you?

 

It feels like acid afterwards, Allura. There’s acid in my veins eating away at me just for thinking that because I can’t…. I can’t let you go. I can’t let you go and I can’t grasp him. It doesn’t work both ways. I can’t have love for you both. Not the same way. I can’t. It isn’t fair to you. To him. I can’t have memories of what it was like sleeping next to you, the smell of your hair, what your kisses feel like. Not if I want to have the same thing with him. 

 

So it’s not ok. It’s so far from ok.”

 

He’s on his knees staring up at her, hands falling to his lap, eyes pleading with her to understand. Like she’s his goddess come to punish him for his sins. Sins he never committed. Never could commit. Kneeling before him she takes those hands, strong, steady, now quivering and thin hands, and raises them to her lips, kissing each finger softly and pressing them to her heart.

 

“You could never let me go, Lance. And you could never let him go.”

 

His head falls, shoulders shaking, curling in on himself. He doesn’t try to free his hands, lets her hold them, lets her speak the damning truth and pass her judgement.

 

“Your love, Lance. Your heart…. Your heart is large enough for an entire clutch of yalaxian pearls. Your love for a single person could fill oceans and there wouldn’t be enough empty oceans to contain it. No matter how deep or how wide, your love would overflow onto the shore and sweep them away not matter how far they ran. And you could never forget any whom you bless with your love. Such a pure, all encompassing thing could never, ever be forgotten, could never be replaced. There would be nothing to replace it with and there would be no competing with it. 

 

You hold your loves, all your loves, every shape they take, every memory you have with them, you hold your love with a grip so tight nothing and no one could break it. They could break you, the universe could break you, but not the grip you have on your loves. And your loves revel in that grip, Lance. My dearest star, you don’t realize it, you never realize your worth.

 

The air has gone out of the universe? It’s cold and empty and pointless and there is acid in your veins? My love. My dearest, sweetest star. You and only you are the reason we survived with our hearts in tact. You are the reason I had the strength to keep moving, the strength to give up what I held most dear to keep it safe even if I couldn’t be around to do it. My love, we kept moving because we had you at our backs, keeping us strong, keeping us from descending into madness, descending into the darkness that war plants in people. I… I could not have done anything without you there to bolster me. 

 

That strength, that drive to protect and support and love is what keeps you from forgetting your loves. All of your loves. You love me. I know you always will. But. You love him too. You love him too and that is alright. I want you to love him, I want you to wake up and tell him and smile and let him care for you as I couldn’t. I want you to build a life with him, to cherish each other. And I want you to remember me as only you could. Only you could take down the pearl that is our love from the shelf, smile and stroke your hands over it and remember every little tiny detail of it and then place it back and refocus on the new pearl, the pearl you build with him.

 

You would cherish both. You would remember both. You would honor both. Because your heart is just that big, is just that strong. 

 

And I am telling you that it is alright to do so. Lance, my dearest star. It is alright.” 

 

She can feel the moment when her words sink in, when he realizes the truth she so desperately wants him to see and believe, take in and build himself up with. His tears wet his face, a catharsis of guilt, of sorrow, of pain. It is a cleansing, an acceptance, these tears. Carefully, she lets his hands go to let them spread over her chest, down to her waist. Those gentle hands she loves, remembers threading into her hair time and again, curl around her and draw her down, draw her to him. She breathes him in, lets him curl around her, lets the tears cleanse him and passes back peace to settle into the empty places in his chest, keep out the numbness.

 

And it is peace that sinks into his skin with her words. Peace that lets him listen and see what she sees, accepts what she wanted, what she pleaded with him for. 

 

She is not wrong.

 

Everyone he loves he would die for, would kill for, would break himself open for time and again if only to see them happy. And he cherishes every memory with him. Lost out in space fighting for another day he remembered all the fights he had with his brothers and sisters, the conversations he had with his abuella, longing for even a single word from them. His abuella he only knew until he was eight but he still remembered her hugs, still remembered her sneaking butterscotch candies to him before dinner. He could never forget her, could never forget anyone.

 

“I’m scared…”

 

“I know.”

 

“I love you.”

 

“I love you, too,”

 

“I… I love him,”

 

She kisses him then, soft and warm and smiling.

 

“I know. And I’m happy you do.”

 

“I don’t want to forget you.”

 

Her hand over his heart, his hand over hers. 

 

“You won’t.”

 

“I don’t want to betray you.”

 

“Oh, my star. You never could.”

 

He curls into her again, letting the tears draw the pain from him, wash away the rubble of numbness, cleanse the acid from him. It’s a long process, long and painful and he feels lighter afterwards, feels air rush into his lungs and warmth seep into his skin. She holds him through it, letting him feel her love for him and him for her around them once more. And she draws a different love closer, draws heat and light and strength to them. She takes his hand, blesses it with a kiss and pulls his eyes up to her, blessing each with a kiss of their own.

 

“I love you, my star,”

 

It’s hard. Hard to get the air to speak. Her fingers are woven with his, not letting go, not releasing him just yet.

 

“I love you…. My queen.”

 

He is blessed one more time, taking the last of the pain and guilt with it. His attention is turned to the warmth brushing his hand, to the being next to them, waiting and patient and always there. She urges him to stand, gentle and letting him take his time, letting him draw from her the acceptance she offers. A kiss. One last blessing and she is stepping back, taking the other’s hand and placing his own into it, covering them with hers.

 

“It’s alright to be happy. It’s alright to be loved and give love. You will always love me and I will always love you and there is enough room in your heart for him and enough love within you for us both. Equals but at different times of your life. And that, all of it, is alright.” 

 

It is.


End file.
